1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a router in an open protocol network configured for executing network operations, for example routing requests and responses, for network nodes utilizing extensible markup language (XML) based messaging.
2. Description of the Related Art
Networking communications technology is undergoing substantial changes in an effort to provide a seamless integration of services by servers connected via a wide area network, such as the World Wide Web. Concerns, however, over scability, security, and fault-tolerance (i.e., “robustness”) limit the ability to implement integration of services using existing protocols, such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). In particular, HTML specifies a limited set of prescribed tags for performing prescribed web operations: these tags cannot be modified absent adoption by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C); hence, use of HTML is limited in its ability to provide advanced networking operations necessary for integration of services.
Extensible Markup Language (XML) enables developers to define application-specific attributes that can be interpreted by a computing system executing the corresponding application. In particular, XML enables a developer to specify an XML tag to have a specific attribute: the interpretation of that attribute (i.e., the attribute's “context”) is determined by the application runtime environment of the corresponding application under execution.
Hence, XML provides substantial flexibility in defining application-specific attributes for a corresponding application under execution. Use of XML in providing enhanced communications in a distributed environment across a prescribed network has been recognized by the W3C, which has developed newer standards such as XHTML 1.0 and the XML Protocol. The XHTML 1.0 Standard is an enhancement to the 1977 HTML 4.0 Standard, enabling creation of richer web pages on different browser platforms including cell phones, televisions, cars, wallet sized wireless communicators, kiosks, and desktops.
The XML Protocol is intended to develop technologies which allow two or more peers to communicate in a distributed environment, using XML as its encapsulation language. The XML Protocol is intended to provide a layered architecture on top of an extensible and simple messaging format. The working group for the XML Protocol, known as the XML Protocol Working Group, is endeavoring to develop a framework for XML-based messaging systems, which includes specifying a message envelope format and a method for data serialization, directed mainly, but not exclusively, to Remote Procedure Call (RPC) applications.
Unfortunately, the full advantages of deploying XML based web pages and messages (hereinafter “XML documents”) are limited by the relative inability of intermediate nodes such as routers to transfer the XML documents through a wide area network, such as the World Wide Web, according to the service requirements specified by the XML documents. In particular, routers currently route packets according to Internet Protocol, which specify only limited priority values such as an 8-bit Type of Service field. Hence, network nodes interacting based on XML documents still are limited in the services limitations of the intermediate routers on the wide area network that forward the packets carrying the data for the XML documents. Consequently, the XML based application services executed by the network nodes still are subject to dropped packets, latency issues, and encountering loss of service based on a network node failure.